On the same day that the President of the Government declared the end of neoliberalism, Telefónica (10% owned by the state through SEPI) published a potentially impactful employment regulatory file on the cover of Cinco Díaz. … 6,000 workers. There is an irony that has written itself. What the government is touting as strategic industrial policy has ended up looking a lot like classic cost-fixing, with all the elements of the manual Mr. Sanchez claims to have mastered.
The state’s entry into Telefónica was justified with the rhetoric of technological sovereignty and defense of strategic sectors. Subsequently, SEPI and a number of its allies imposed changes in the presidency. José María Álvarez-Palette has resigned and been replaced by Marc Murtola, the executive affairs manager assigned to lead Indra. Now, just a few months later, a strategic plan has been announced to cut the dividend, lower the company’s stock price, and undermine the socialist debate.
What’s going on with Telefonica? There are three possible interpretations:
First hypothesis: Mr. Murtola would have encountered a crisis situation inherited from previous management. According to this version, the layoffs are nothing more than a bill for a decision that Alvarez-Parette has been putting off for years. It is a typical argument by newcomers that unpopular measures must be taken to “save” the company.
Second thesis: Murtra is not inheritance, but rather acceleration. He is applying in weeks what Pallete has been using a scalpel to do for years to adjust prices: layoffs, cost adjustments, and streamlining. But it’s done without anesthesia, has an immediate impact on the market, and lacks the caution required of publicly traded companies.
Third theme: Murtola is not qualified to lead a company like Telefonica, but he has friends in Moncloa who support him. He lacks experience running large public companies, does not understand business or how to build a credible story for investors, and his strategic plan is perceived as a series of cuts without industrial vision or international ambition. The result: loss of value and distrust in the stock market.
No matter what the correct statement is, objective facts exist. Today, Telefonica’s value has declined, its employees fear a major adjustment, and the state has joined forces with a left-wing coalition to enter the capital of a company that challenges its own ideological narrative. If the goal is to protect strategic companies, what the government has done is too reminiscent of what it has criticized in the past: coming in as a shareholder and then approving job cuts. That paradox is jarring. Government economic policy faces a mirror of itself, and what the image returns is not precisely heresy, but rather orthodoxy applied in broad strokes. jmuller@abc.es
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